Gerber Makes Baby Food

I had a cute photo picked out for this entry, but whoops, I'm out of google storage space.  Who would have thought little old me would use up all my space.  It looks like $5.00 will buy me 20 GB so I'm not too worried, but I don't feel like messing with it now. I'll have Calvin do it tomorrow.  So, today, you get no picture to look at.

The penultimate lesson before the recital is statistically the highest likely for tears to fall. And so it goes--two so far this week. I don't think I've said anything cruel. I think I probably pushed a little too hard on a specific passage. I'm used to repeating something 50 million times until I get it, but I have to remember that high school students have all kinds of pressures on them and sometimes it's the straw that broke the camel's back.  Finals. . . boy friends or lack of boy friends. .  .guilt over not practicing enough. You never know. I'm sorry.

This caused me to reflect on the countless number of my own lessons, in which I reached for the kleenex. Wayne Barrington comes to mind. He's passed away so I don't really care what he thinks anymore. He was my french horn teacher at the University of Texas. Ultimately he personally helped me to loft my horn into the garbage heap and run for my life. Actually I sold it for rent, which was the only money I ever earned regarding the french horn, with the exception perhaps of the Kishwaukee Community Orchestra in which I think I made $30 one season.  Oh wait, I used that for gas to get there.

I hated him. I ran into him years later in the Kinkos in Austin and told him I had gotten my masters and he said what a shame it was that they were giving degrees to people who couldn't perform. Ouch. You see, he had played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra once upon a time and none of us horn majors were ever quite worthy. It wasn't just me. Later I accompanied a fellow victim in his studio, her own tears falling as he screamed "don't you have an ear?"   

He hated it that I played piano. He hated it even worse that I played jazz piano. Gerber, he said.  They make baby food. They do one thing and they do it well.

As it turns out, I looked on the Gerber website today and they are now making baby formula, baby yogurt, baby frozen dinners, pacifiers, jammies. . . . . tough times call for tough measures.

I wanted to tell him that I coached two high school pianists into the Texas All State Jazz Ensemble.  That my little six year old won the solo contest for the ADMTA.  That I had a heck of a IRS form 1099 from a country band that paid for my piano and rent and car for over five years.

There were a lot of things I wanted to tell him.  My diversity has served me well.

Mostly I wanted to tell him that how we play is not who we are.  That each of us has a unique value that is not contingent upon making it into a major orchestra.  That music should bring us joy.

I'm sure his ghost would tell me that I shouldn't spend so much time parenting and gardening and decorating for Christmas and teaching and playing for the choir.  I should do one thing and do it well.   Well. It's much to late for that. Lucky for me I'm pretty darn happy being a little good at a lot of things.

So girls, I'm sorry I made you cry. Truly. You have no idea. I love the way you play piano, I love you if you wreck your finals, I love you if your boy friend breaks up with you and I love you if you totally botch the recital.  I have nothing but love for you.

It's just that one little passage. . . still needs some work.  Wink. . .